School emergencies happen often and include a wide range of situations. From medical emergencies to school shootings, school emergencies can happen anytime and require vast preparedness from everyone involved. Unfortunately, the unpredictable nature of school emergencies impedes full preparedness for every emergency which may occur in schools. Recent school shootings have highlighted this problem where students, faculty, and staff are caught by surprise, not knowing what was happening or where it was occurring, and emergency response was delayed. Schools and other educational institutions have implemented emergency plans, drills, and other proactive actions to prepare everyone who may be involved in an emergency to know what to do and hopefully help alleviate the tragedies. Unfortunately, the emergency plans, drills, and other proactive actions cannot cover every possible situation, which can leave students, faculty, and staff unprepared for many situations. Response systems have also been implemented to reduce and improve emergency response to school emergencies. For example, some law enforcement agencies have implemented direct communication channels with schools. However, these response systems have limited capabilities with few people being able to activate the response system. There are many cases where an emergency occurs at a location far from anyone able to activate the response system, which results in emergency response being delayed and tragedies increasing. There is a need for a better emergency alert and response system which allows greater involvement from different people in order to increase emergency alertness, identify where the emergency is taking place, and improve emergency response to school emergencies to reduce tragedies.
An objective of the present invention is to provide an emergency alert and response system. The emergency alert and response system allows for greater involvement from people in schools and other educational institutions in order to increase alertness from everyone who may be affected by a school emergency. The emergency alert and response system provide a system which increases and facilitates the dissemination of information regarding the school emergency so every person who could be affected by the emergency is notified as to exact nature of the emergency and the exact location that it is occurring. By communication in real time, the emergency alert and response system further provide a system which facilitates and streamlines the communication between people involved, affected, or alerted of the emergency with appropriate law enforcement or other response agencies. In further embodiment of the present invention, the emergency alert and response system can be modified and adapted to work with other emergencies which may not be involved with educational institutions.